Diabetes is a chronic disease resulting from deficient insulin secretion by the endocrine pancreas. About 7% of the general population in the Western Hemisphere suffers from diabetes. Of these persons, roughly 90% suffer from Type-2 diabetes while approximately 10% suffer from Type-1. In Type-1 diabetes, patients effectively surrender their endocrine pancreas to autoimmune distraction and so become dependent on daily insulin injections to control blood-glucose-levels. In Type-2 diabetes, on the other hand, the endocrine pancreas gradually fails to satisfy increased insulin demands, thus requiring the patient to compensate with a regime of oral medications or insulin therapy. In the case of either Type-1 or Type-2 diabetes, the failure to properly control glucose levels in the patient may lead to such complications as heart attacks, strokes, blindness, renal failure, and even premature death.
Insulin therapy is the mainstay of Type-1 diabetes management and one of the most widespread treatments in Type-2 diabetes, about 27% of the sufferers of which require insulin. Insulin administration is designed to imitate physiological insulin secretion by introducing at least two classes of insulin into the patient's body: Long-acting insulin, which fulfills basal metabolic needs; and short-acting insulin (also known as fast-acting insulin), which compensates for sharp elevations in blood-glucose-levels following patient meals. Orchestrating the process of dosing these two types of insulin, in whatever form (e.g., separately or as premixed insulin) involves numerous considerations.
First, patients measure their blood-glucose-levels on average about 3 to 4 times per day. The device most commonly employed in diabetes management is the blood glucose meter. Such devices come in a variety of forms, although all are characterized by their ability to provide patients near instantaneous readings of their blood-glucose-levels. This additional information can be used to better identify dynamic trends in blood-glucose-levels. However, conventional glucose meters, in addition to other drawbacks, are designed to be diagnostic tools rather than therapeutic ones. Therefore, by themselves, even state-of-the-art glucose meters do not lead to improved glycemic control.
Many users with diabetes take one or more insulin injections daily and may use a syringe or an insulin pen to deliver the desired insulin. On average insulin-takers measure their glucose level 3 times a day using one of many commercially available glucose meters. While an insulin-taker glucose level is a diagnostic indication of glycemic control, the therapeutic action designed to achieve glycemic control is the insulin injection. Insulin-takers typically follow a dosage prescribed by a health care provider that instructs them to take a certain amount of insulin given an event (e.g., breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime, etc.) and potentially their present glucose level. There are several software applications that allows a physician to digitize the dosage, typically using a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) platform, such that the user need only to point out to the current event and, if necessary, enter the current glucose level to receive an insulin dose recommendation. Such applications are generally referred to as dose-calculators. Dose-calculators exist for smartphones or iPhone.
While some insulin pump controllers connect a glucose reading with a physician programmed infusion profile yielding a suggested therapeutic action, glucose meters are diagnostic devices. People that use manual syringe injections to administer insulin rely on glucose meters to measure their current glucose level to follow a health care provider recommendation given in the form of a dosage. The task of how the information therein, i.e., a glucose level, be used is left at the hands of the users and their health care provider. Accordingly, there continues to exist the need for apparatus and/or methods that are at once easy to use so as to facilitate improved diabetes control in patients, and which serves more than a mere diagnostic function. Such apparatus will provide users with an actionable item to follow. Furthermore, the instruction can be adjusted to fit unique individualized needs of the users as reflected by historic glucose levels. The present disclosure addresses these problems and other problems that will become apparent from the discussion herein.